The Story

Early 1900’s to mid 1960’s

P. Kunhikannan - history of Vaishnavi Estate Coffee

The story of our coffees and plantations begins more than a 100 years ago (circa 1909) when our grandfather, P Kunhikannan, began as a spice trader in district of Coorg (Karnataka), who carried his wares on his bullock carts to the spice markets in Kerala. Over the years, he became good at what he did and all his hard work and dedication working the treacherous Western Ghats paid off. Eventually in 1928 he was able to purchase a 200 acre estate in Perumbubetta (Pollibetta area), Coorg, India. His success at pepper and coffee enabled him to build the first permanent movie theatre in Coorg district - Shanta Picture Palace - in Virajpet, Coorg in 1956. His philanthropic efforts earned him a good name in the area.

In keeping with the times of having large families, Kunhikannan had six sons (Bharathan, Chandrashekhar, Ramachandran, Srinivas, Lakshman and Prakash) and three daughters (Sathyabhama, Sathyavathy and Shantha)

Early 1970’s and onwards

C.P. Prakash, the youngest of the sons, chose to study law and moved to Bangalore where he dabbled in real estate and founded Vaishnavi Constructions (builder and developers) in addition to working on the coffee plantation. In 1985, he established Vaishnavi Estate as we now know it today.

2020 and beyond (Covid baby)

In the aftermath of the global Covid-19 pandemic, we embarked on a new venture to take our family tradition of entrepreneurship and passion for coffee forward. Since we have literally lived and breathed coffee and have enjoyed our own beans for many years, we decided to take our coffee to the world, directly, rather than selling it to a middle man.

Our goal is to do this in a sustainable, environment friendly way, paying particular attention to growing and benefiting the local community by hiring and utilizing local resources as much as possible.

We are proud to say that coffee is not far from the heart of the rest of the family either. While my wife, Nandini, helps with the management of the plantation stay, our children - Neel, Aditi and Neha - have understood the importance of our heritage and as human beings, our connection to nature. We have been exposing our children to the wonderful joys of plantation life where they can imbibe lessons from nature and their responsibility to the environment. Neel has been involved in the project helping with video editing and Product Research. We hope to instill our passion for coffee in them and we know they will take the family to greater heights than we ever could.

Hope you enjoy our coffee. If you like it, please do let your friends know and come back for more. For any reason you are not happy with the fresh, high quality coffee that you have received, please do let us know and we will make it right.

Sincerely,

Mridhul Prakash
Designated Partner,
Vaishnavi Coffees LLP